New Canaan There & Then: John & Carolyn Kennedy, the New Canaan Couple That Might Have Been

‘New Canaan There & Then’ is sponsored by Brown Harris Stevens Realtors Bettina Hegel, Joanne Santulli and Dawn Sterner. 

Within days of the tragedy that summer of 1999, the New York Post carried the intriguing story that the beautiful young couple were under contract to purchase property in New Canaan. 

The story, titled in the Post’s inimitable way, “Estate Would Have Been Great for Kids,” was uncharacteristically fact specific:

“John F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife Carolyn were building a Connecticut dream house with everything a Camelot couple could wish for – even llamas grazing nearby. The spread has lots of rooms, lots of land, a tennis court, a swimming pool. And it’s in New Canaan, the tony town where Carolyn Bessette Kennedy spent part of her childhood and where her sister Lisa Ann lives.”

The Post story identified the property as 65 Barnegat Road, a large parcel of land at the northern tip of New Canaan, on the border with New York State. Construction there was well underway continued the story, and the Post identified the owner as Alex Kaali-Nagy, a respected architect and local builder responsible for a number of high-end construction projects in Greenwich and elsewhere in Fairfield County.

Two days later, the New York Daily News threw water on the story of its arch competitor. “Connecticut Dream House Not Theirs” screamed the headline, adding a full-throated denial by Kaali-Nagy’s PR team:

“There’s no truth to the report that Alex Khaali-Nagi was building a house for John F. Kennedy Jr. Mr. Kaali-Nagy had no relationship with Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy,” a representative of the architect said in a written statement. The News also quoted New Canaan town officials on the dream house story. “We cannot confirm reports that the Kennedys had any interest in owning property in New Canaan,” Town Clerk Claudia Weber said.

And then the story slowly, softly, faded away, lying fallow for 27 years. 

***

The death of John and Carolyn Kennedy, and her older sister Lauren, left an indelible imprint on American culture. While nowhere near the impact that 9/11 would have little over two years later, it nonetheless was a touch point for a generation of Americans that had watched John grow from childhood icon to media superstar. 

And why not? JFK Jr. was America’s storybook prince, with the charisma, charm and looks to boot. He had married his equal in grace in the winsome former Calvin Klein director, and his “political lifestyle” magazine “George” seemed to be humming on all cylinders (it would take his death for George’s financial problems to surface).

Full disclosure. John was my fraternity brother at Brown (he was class of ’83; I was ‘84). The first time I met him was during my freshman year, when I went to check out the loft that he was selling. The door to his room opened and I peered through the thick haze of smoke to see John and several other brothers giggling hysterically. I ended up staying for a couple of hours. And forgot about the loft.

I would see John regularly at Phi Psi and on campus thereafter, but it was the summer of 1983 that I really got to know him. We were both taking the Stanley Kaplan prep course for the LSAT in downtown Providence. John had already graduated, and by then had arranged to work in India over the next two years for John Kenneth Galbraith, the U.S. Ambassador there and an old Kennedy family loyalist. While law school was a foregone conclusion for me, for John it was, like so many other things in his life, simply a perhaps-might possibly do-thing. 

I was commuting to the class from my home in Barrington, and John (who was still living in Providence with his best friend Christiane Amanpour) would save me a seat next to him. During breaks we’d talk about acting, sports, history, girls, normal stuff. Everything and anything but law or law school.

I’ll never forget the Sunday afternoon before the actual LSAT exam on Tuesday, when my mom called upstairs to say that John was on the line. I picked up and he said, “Hey have you been taking the practice exams?” quickly followed by, “Do you have any of them handy?” After a pause, and my expletive-laden response, I took pity on him and ended up schlepping up to Providence to drop off my leftover exams, telling him “Good luck Counselor” on the way out. Classic John.

***

When I first learned that his plane had gone missing that last millennium summer, I was in Rhode Island to attend my grandfather’s memorial service. I heard the news on a weathered AM radio at the local jewelry store, where I’d gone to purchase cuff links to replace those that I had absent-mindedly left in New Canaan. Having grown up sailing on Block Island Sound and knowing the fog that typically rolls in after dusk, enveloping everything in its grasp on a hot summer night, I knew the news was grim.

Amidst the torrent of endless media stories about the crash, the recovery efforts overseen by John’s uncle Ted, and the so-called Kennedy Curse, the Post story about 65 Barnegat rang true to me. We lived on Salem Road at the time, and I knew that John’s mother-in-law lived a half a mile down the street from us, in a lovely, expanded cape at 575 Silvermine (in fact she was friends with my own mother-in-law, who also lived nearby, on Canoe Hill Road). My wife and I had met Carolyn on the Upper West Side shortly after she had begun dating John, and her experience growing up in Greenwich certainly would have been a factor in them choosing to live in the country. 

I had lost track of John personally by then; I was a busy lawyer with three young children and a growing law practice, and he was, well, John F. Kennedy Jr. But it was nevertheless startling to think that someone who lived so fully could exit so quickly. And the thought that Mrs. Freeman had lost two daughters and a son-in-law was almost too difficult to comprehend. 

***

I can’t recall what prompted me to research the 1999 news accounts, but it’s likely the FX channel’s “Love Story” drama played a role. I hadn’t (and still haven’t) seen it, but it was difficult to avoid the omnipresent hype for the kitschy made-for-tv series. I’d just started contributing to this column, coping with the task of knitting New Canaan history to a good story. This had both.

 I spoke with one of our fraternity brothers who had kept in regular touch with John over the years. He didn’t know anything about the New Canaan property, but it didn’t surprise him. “She couldn’t stand the fishbowl life they had in the city,” he said. “The paparazzi were camped outside their loft in Tribeca day and night.” On the other hand, he did note (correctly in my opinion) that, “John eventually would have gone crazy up there. He was a city guy through-and-through.”

I started nosing around the New Canaan real estate brokerage community. Several sources stated that that they “had always believed” 65 Barnegat was built for John and Carolyn; one well-placed realtor stated categorically that “Kaali-Nagi was building that house for them – with their direction and input.” But that was about the sum of it. No hard proof. Of course, the one real estate person that would know for sure was Alex Kaali-Nagy himself, still going strong today at 82 years, building “ultra-luxury, high-end properties, often selling between $6 million and $14 million” in Connecticut’s Gold Coast.

I first reached out to Kaali-Nagy through an intermediary who knows him well. Interestingly, the builder didn’t reiterate the written denial from nearly 27 years ago but, by the same token, nor did he disclose anything new; he simply said, “I can’t comment on 65 Barnegat.” I then left several messages for Kaali-Nagy, offering him the opportunity to finally put a close on the story. He never called back.

Once the house at 65 Barnegat Road was completed, the architect didn’t put it on the market for sale, choosing instead to move from Greenwich to New Canaan and live in the house with his family. He sold it in 2007.